Ex Parte Robinson et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 14, 201711958366 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 14, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 11/958,366 12/17/2007 David ROBINSON LUTZ 200773US01 1003 48116 7590 11/16/2017 FAY STTARPF/T TTf’F.NT EXAMINER 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor ALAM, MUSHFIKH I The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2426 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/16/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): docketing @ faysharpe.com ipsnarocp @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID ROBINSON, ANDREY KISEL, and CHRISTIAAN SCHUTTE1 Appeal 2015-006272 Application 11/958,366 Technology Center 2400 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 According to Appellants the Real Party in Interest is ALCATEL LUCENT. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2015-006272 Application 11/958,366 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9-12. Claims 3, 6, and 8 are canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. THE INVENTION The claims are directed to an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) system for provisioning IPTV services to a subscriber. Spec., 11. 4—5. Claims 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. An Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) System for provisioning IPTV services to a subscriber of said IPTV system, said IPTVsystem comprising: an application server (AS) for provisioning IPTV services to said subscriber via a first client device (STB) associated with said subscriber, said application server (AS) being coupled to said first client device (STB) over a communications network (CN); a location determination part (LA) adapted to determine a location of said subscriber, wherein said location is determined based on the current location of a mobile terminal associated to said subscriber, wherein the current location of the mobile terminal is determined by a mobile network connecting the mobile terminal; and a service provisioning determination part (SPDP) adapted to determine alternative means for provisioning of said IPTV services to said subscriber based on said location of said subscriber, wherein said IPTV services are provisioned based on said alternative means, wherein said alternative means is a delayed provisioning to said first client device, subsequent to the location determination part detecting the arrival of said subscriber at said first client device. 2 Appeal 2015-006272 Application 11/958,366 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Tabassi et al. US 2006/0225108 A1 Oct. 5, 2006 DaCosta US 2007/0067808 Al Mar. 22,2007 O’Neil US 2011/0099587 Al Apr. 28,2011 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over DaCosta and O’Neil. Final Act. 2-4. Claims 9-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over DaCosta, O’Neil, and Tabassi. Final Act. 4—6. APPELLANTS’ CONTENTION2 DaCosta’s service provider 204, relied upon for teaching the claimed application server, fails to teach or suggest the retrieval of subscriber location information. App. Br. 6. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred in rejecting independent claims 1, 4, and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over DaCosta and 2 We note Appellants raise additional contentions of error but we do not reach them as our resolution of this contention is dispositive of the appealed rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 3 Appeal 2015-006272 Application 11/958,366 O’Neil. We agree with Appellants’ conclusions as to this rejection of the claims. The Examiner finds DaCosta’s cable/satellite television service provider 204 teaches the application server of the independent claims. According to the Examiner, DaCosta teaches the disputed location determination part adapted to determine an actual location of a subscriber determined based on a current location of the subscriber’s mobile terminal (DaCosta’s portable wireless device (PWD)) (Final Act. 3). The Examiner reasons “[o]ne of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that in order to transmit data on a downlink from a mobile base station, the station MUST need to know which cell block the mobile device is located in.” Ans. 5. Appellants contend DaCosta fails to teach the location determination part of claims 1 and 7 (App. Br. 11), and the subscriber location retrieval part of claim 4 (App. Br. 6—7). Appellants argue “nowhere does DaCosta disclose that the service provider 204 ever retrieves a current location of a subscriber from a location agent or any other component of DaCosta.” App. Br. 6. Instead, according to Appellants, “[DaCosta’s] television service provider 204 merely provides a requested television program to . . . [program routing service (PRS)] 200” and may be “entirely unaware of its final destination or the current location of the PWD 22 and/or its user.” App. Br. 7. Appellants’ arguments are persuasive. Independent claims 1, 4, and 7 require determining a location of a subscriber, e.g., a particular geographic place or “whereabouts” of the subscriber. The location of the subscriber is used by the service provisioning determination part (SPDP) to determine alternative means for provisioning of IPTV services to the subscriber based 4 Appeal 2015-006272 Application 11/958,366 on the location of the subscriber. Although one skilled in that art would have understood a typical cellular telephone system can determine the geographic location of a mobile station based on the location of a cell block being used to communicate with the mobile station, there is no indication this information is captured much less provided to DaCosta’s television service provider 204 or to PRS 200 to route programming to the mobile station. That is, even if available somewhere in the cellular system providing connectivity to the mobile station, the Examiner has provided insufficient evidence that the location of the subscriber is made available to the service provisioning determination part (SPDP) of the independent claims. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1, 4, and 7 or the rejection of their dependent claims 2,5, and 9-12. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9-12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation